Korean Air Flight 2708

On 27 May 2016, a Boeing 777-300 of Korean Air, operating as Korean Air Flight 2708[1] from Haneda Airport in Tokyo to Seoul's Gimpo International Airport, was accelerating for take off when its left engine suffered an uncontained failure and a substantial fire ensued. The crew aborted the take-off, and after the aircraft came to a stop the fire was extinguished by the airport emergency services. All 319 passengers and crew were evacuated; 12 occupants were injured.[2][3] The accident was attributed to poor maintenance standards and failure of the crew to carry out the emergency procedures correctly.

Korean Air Flight 2708
HL7534, the aircraft involved in the accident, after evacuation
Accident
Date27 May 2016 (2016-05-27)
SummaryUncontained engine failure due to maintenance error and pilot error
SiteHaneda Airport, Tokyo, Japan
Aircraft
Aircraft typeBoeing 777-3B5
OperatorKorean Air
IATA flight No.KE2708
ICAO flight No.KAL2708
Call signKOREAN AIR 2708
RegistrationHL7534
Flight originHaneda Airport, Tokyo, Japan
DestinationGimpo Airport, Seoul, South Korea
Occupants319
Passengers302
Crew17
Fatalities0
Injuries12
Survivors319

Aircraft and crew
HL7534, the aircraft involved, seen at Narita International Airport (The other airport serving Tokyo) in 2009.

The aircraft operating Flight 2708 was a Boeing 777-3B5[lower-alpha 1] equipped with two Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines, registered HL7534, serial number 27950. The 120th Boeing 777 produced, it first flew on 4 February 1998, and was delivered new to Korean Air on 28 December 1999.[4]

The 49-year-old captain had logged a total of 10,410 flight hours, including 3,205 hours on the Boeing 777. The 41-year-old first officer had 5,788 hours with 2,531 of them on the Boeing 777.[5]: 10–11 

Accident

As the aircraft was taking off from Runway 34R at Tokyo Haneda, the pilots heard a loud bang coming from the left. The pilots aborted the takeoff and the aircraft came to a stop, whereupon an evacuation commenced. All the occupants escaped, but 12 passengers were injured and were taken to a hospital near the airport. Incoming flights were diverted to Tokyo's Narita International Airport and to Osaka. The airport firefighters quickly extinguished the fire. The aircraft reportedly travelled 700 metres down the runway before coming to a stop, with engine-parts scattered 600 metres from the point at which the aircraft began accelerating and tire-marks 700 metres from that point.[6]

Impact

Because of the incident, all four runways of Haneda Airport was closed, impacting a total of at least 36,000 passengers.[7] Among the impacted was Toshinao Nakagawa, who was supposed to attend US President Barack Obama's speech at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum as one of the elected officials of Hiroshima Prefecture. Nakagawa was unable to make the trip due to his flight being cancelled as a result of this accident.[8][9]

Investigation

The Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB), the South Korean Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board (ARAIB), and the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) all investigated the accident, with assistance from experts in South Korea and the United States. On 30 May 2016, investigators revealed that the low-pressure turbine blades on the left (number one) Pratt & Whitney PW4090 engine had "shattered", with fragments piercing the engine cover, with fragments subsequently found on the runway. The engine's high-pressure turbine blades and high-pressure compressor were intact and free of abnormalities, and investigators found no evidence of a bird strike.[10][11]

The aircraft was repaired and returned to service with Korean Air on 3 June 2016.[12]

The final JTSB investigative report, released on 26 July 2018, discussed a significant number of problems related to the failure and the response of the crew and passengers to it. These included poor maintenance standards that overlooked a crack growing in the LP turbine disc in the engine created by metal fatigue that eventually failed, the failure of the crew to locate the list of emergency procedures for use in such an emergency, beginning evacuation of the aircraft whilst the engines were still turning meaning there was a risk of passengers being blown away by the engines, and passengers ignoring instructions to leave luggage behind when using the evacuation slides risking piercing of the slides.[13] As a result of the fire, the FAA issued an Airworthiness Directive mandating inspection of engines of the type involved in the fire to evaluate the condition of the components which failed on Flight 2708.[5]: 56 

See also

Notes
  1. The aircraft is a Boeing 777-300 model; Boeing assigns a unique customer code for each company that buys one of its aircraft, which is applied as a suffix in the model number at the time the aircraft is built. The code for Korean Air is "B5", hence "777-3B5".

References
  1. "KE2708 Flight, Korean Air, Tokyo to Seoul". www.flightr.net. Archived from the original on 7 November 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2016.
  2. "BREAKING Korean Air Boeing 777-300 #KE2708 evacuated at Haneda Airport in Tokyo after engine fire". Air Live Net. 27 May 2016.
  3. "Accident: Korean B773 at Tokyo on May 27th 2016, rejected takeoff due to engine fire". The Aviation Herald. Archived from the original on 16 November 2017. Retrieved 27 May 2016.
  4. "Korean Air HL7534 (Boeing 777 - MSN 27950)". Airfleets.net. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
  5. AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION REPORT KOREAN AIR LINES CO., LTD. H L 7 5 3 4 (PDF). Japan Transport Safety Board. 26 July 2018.
  6. "Korean Air jet went 700 meters down runway after engine caught fire at Haneda". The Japan Times. Kyodo. 28 May 2016. Archived from the original on 31 May 2016. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
  7. "大韓航空機出火で欠航相次ぐ ３万６千人に影響". Asahi Shimbun. 27 May 2016. Archived from the original on 28 May 2016. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
  8. "【オバマ氏広島訪問】大韓航空機トラブルで、国会議員ら献花に出席できず". 産経ニュース (in Japanese). Sankei Shimbun. 27 May 2016. Archived from the original on 7 December 2021. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
  9. Mami, Yamada (27 May 2016). "大韓航空機出火：広島選出議員、帰広できず". 毎日新聞 (in Japanese). Mainichi Shimbun. Archived from the original on 30 June 2016. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
  10. "Japan, U.S., S. Korea begin joint probe of Korean Air jet accident". Kyodo News. 30 May 2016. Archived from the original on 9 June 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2016.
  11. Muutzabaugh, Ben; Jansen, Bart (27 June 2016). "Cause of dramatic Singapore Air 777 fire could take months to figure out". USA Today. Archived from the original on 27 June 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2016.
  12. "大韓航空 Boeing 777-300 (HL7534) 航空フォト" [Korean Air Boeing 777-300 (HL7534)]. flyteam.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved 8 September 2019.
  13. Ito, Yoshitaka (26 July 2018). "Serial botch-ups cited in Korean Air engine fire at Haneda in 2016". Archived from the original on 26 July 2018. Retrieved 30 December 2018.
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